For those who have never heard of Bal Thackeray it suffices to say he was an Indianpolitician with the power and the will to mobilize mobs of Hindu fanatics from hisextremist Shiv Sena party who frequently went on a rampage to murder, rape and pillageMuslims, Christians, South Indians and their property.

I have a particularly dislike for Thackeray whose thugs sent me scary messages while I was foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune in New Delhi until finally I received a letter from someone warning I was 'a marked man.' The letter came from a Shiv Sena member in Chicago, a good example of the type of Hindu extremist living safely and comfortably abroad but eager to prove their credentials as loyalists. The letter was turned over to Chicago police and I have no idea what happened to the guy who signed himself simply 'Shiv Sena' perhaps convinced the namealone would strike the fear of the gods in me, as it does in many Indians.

I thought of those days at the turn of the century when I read of Thackeray's deaththis week followed by the story of two young women, Shaheen Dhada, 21 and RenuSrinivasan, 20, arrested and jailed for politely protesting on Facebook that Bombay should shut down in respect for, or rather of, this man. On her Facebook update Dhada wrote......"respect is earned, given, anddefinitely not forced....today Mumbai (Bombay) shuts down due to fear, not due to respect...." Her facebook friend Renu merely agreed with that statement.

It occurred to me then (again) that something has gone badly wrong withIndian democracy which has never jailed Thackeray for his decades-long inflammatoryspeeches virtually exhorting his followers to go out and purify India of Muslim andChristian infidels, if necessary by fire.Â Yet two young women who made a simple andrather polite comment about this man's death are hauled to jail and probably while ShivSena thugs vandalised a clinic of Dhada's uncle.

(Both women have been released on bail as Supreme Court lawyer Ms Karuna Nundyargued for reform of the law under which they were accused of disparaging, hateful andblasphemous' remarks.) All this happened while Indian leaders expressed their condolences and regret atthe passing away of a man who had been one of India's greatest obstacles to reconciliationbetween Hindus and Muslims, a man who could activate a mob offanatics with a few phrases.

In my days in 1998 and 1999 Thackeray launched a crusade against Christians inIndia, especially those from low castes who had converted to Christianity to escape the inhuman fate of having been born into the lowest castes as Dalits, the Untouchables. Dalits are treated asthe refuse of humanity by the higher castes who will not even drink out of the same glass as them or worship in the same temple. For many Dalits Christianity was the only way to escape their predestined role. But militant Hindus were infuriated by the 'desertion' of a caste providing cheap labour and servants, a caste whose village women were often raped by rampaging upper caste youths without punishment. (One could not drink from the same glass used by a Dalitbut obviously one could fornicate with a Dalit, another Hindu anomaly)

I used to write about these raids on Christian villages of former Dalits, brutal incursionswhich unfortunately only made headlines when Hindutva thugs burned alive an Australianmissionary and his two sons in their camper. After that Banswara Village in southern Rajasthan, a village of Christian converts, was burned to the ground when local Hindu fundamentalist leaders called for it to be 'eradicated.' In those days raids by Shiv Sena and other Hindutva mobs smashed film theatresscreening foreign films, terrorized audiences, tore up paintings and canvasses consideredsacrilegious and dug up the New Delhi cricket pitch to prevent a scheduled cricket match betweenIndia and 'the enemy' Pakistan. The result was well calculated. The Shiv Sena crusades mobilized piousHindus and paved the way for a majority government, the firstÂ in five decades, by theHindu Nationalist Party (BJP). One may only hope the death of Thackeray, one of the undisputed leaders ofHindu fundamentalism, might usher in a more peaceful coexistence between Muslims and Hindus.Yet judging by the arrest of the two Facebook girls, an increasingly corrupt Indian democracy still caters to radical elements to covet their support at the polls.

Uli Schmetzer was the Chicago Tribune correspondent in New Delhi between 1998 and 2000. He is the author of four books available in print and digital versions on www.amazon.com.